


with you (heaven is a place on earth)

by minirovks



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald, Minecraft (Video Game), The Great Gatsby (1974), The Great Gatsby (2013)
Genre: (i refuse to spend more time on this than i already have. please. i'm so tired), Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Biblical Imagery (Abrahamic Religions), Biblical Themes (Abrahamic Religions), Crack Treated Seriously, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not Canon Compliant, Possibly Unrequited Love, Slash, Song Lyrics, Unrequited Love, it's ironic i swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:29:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28623342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minirovks/pseuds/minirovks
Summary: It’s in the way he holds himself, isn’t it? The way that he’s so effortlessly elegant at everything he does, the undeniable Gatsby-ness of it all. Could anyone really blame him for being so enamored of it? Heaven can be a kind of hell, Steve thinks, when it is always just out of reach.orSteve doesn't know he's in love with the feeling and not the man.
Relationships: Steve (Minecraft)/Jay Gatsby, that's right baby - Relationship, this is a productive use of my time. definitely.
Comments: 32
Kudos: 27





	with you (heaven is a place on earth)

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes you have a conversation that starts with "i wish steve minecraft/gatsby fanfiction were real" and ends with "on a scale from my immortal to heat waves how ironic should it be" and this is what comes of it. truly nothing encompasses my motivations more accurately than just disparaging authors' legacies as soon as their copyright expires.
> 
> anyway steve minecraft is an attention whore lol pass it on

**genesis**  
noun  
The origin or mode of formation of something.

~

“Don’t disturb the wildlife.” Steve chastises Jay, newly moved to the neighborhood, watching him swing his arms through the spring air thick with pollen. The particles are stuck to both of their clothes, and he can see the soles of Jay’s shoes stained golden-orange as he walks.

“How do you know the wildlife isn’t disturbing me?” Jay brushes the pollen off his shoulders with a wide flourish, giving Steve a shit-eating, lighten-up-now-old-sport grin. “Their Sunday best isn’t being tragically stained.”

“Your ‘Sunday best’”—he gives Jay’s rumpled flannel a dubious once-over—“if we can even call it that—”

He gasps and presses a crestfallen hand to his chest. “Well, I _never_ , Stephen. Lies and slander.”

“I think it’s pretty truthful.”

“Heresy, I daresay.”

“That’s not what that word means.”

“Hey, now,” he protests, “we live in a society saturated with Christian terminology. Stuff’s unavoidable.”

Steve hums, unconvinced.

“So sue me, Stephen.”

“Maybe I will, James.”

“ _Gatsby_.”

Steve nods, then turns his face away to roll his eyes a little. Jay’s renamed himself. It’s pretentious. When Steve asked what he had against his given name, James Gatz, he just shrugged and let the corners of his mouth fall into an easy beam. _Why not?_ Steve didn’t miss the slight hesitation before the declaration, though. Maybe he just doesn’t know the guy well enough to inquire into it yet.

That same wry mouth is momentarily scrunched in displeasure, and Steve notes the new creases that form in his face before he continues off on some other tangent. He doesn’t quite catch the whole thing. He’s too busy hearing Jay’s voice, its mulled cadence and sharp consonants, to listen to him.

~

They’re more Easter Christians than anything, but Stephen’s parents named him after a saint. On a whim, he took the time to look up his namesake a few years ago. One of Jesus’s disciples, and the first Christian martyr. Kind of an intimidating act to live up to. Maybe it’s just a symptom of youth, but he doesn’t know if he can picture himself ever being as someone as important or as vast as that. If anything, he feels more like Adam, blindly following Eve and God and anyone else who gives him orders, accepting things as they come. And that’s okay by him—he’s content being a follower—but it does mean his name doesn’t really fit him, does it?

Maybe Jay is onto something after all.

~

After months of pestering, Steve lets Jay convince him to skip. He ends up missing last-period English, his favorite class, but also the class he has the highest grade in, so hopefully this won’t bring him down by much.

He’s waiting outside of Jay’s class now, where he was told to be, and the guy still hasn’t shown up. Cautiously, he peers through the window in the door, where Jay is chatting with his teacher, gesturing with conviction. After a while, his teacher sighs with an exasperated but fond smile before pulling out some paperwork. Steve catches Jay’s eye for a second, long enough for Jay to wink. Steve ducks fully behind the door again to hide the doofy, growing smile on his face. Eye contact is a trivial action, but it feels good to be seen and acknowledged by him. Even though he knows he’s not special, it makes him feel like he is.

It’s been almost ten minutes when Jay emerges, hall pass and letter to the nurse in hand and then promptly discarded. “Stephen,” he greets.

“Gatsby.”

Jay adjusts the short locks of hair falling over his forehead with his now-free hand, using his phone screen as a mirror, and then elbows Steve. Warmth climbs up from his ribcage, where Jay touches him, into his sternum. “Shall we?”

“Heresy be damned,” he says softly, without thinking. A whole choir of angels could never compare to this.

~

If he had to give Jay any role in the Bible, he would probably say Lucifer. _Satan_ is a title, like _saint_ or _Christ_ , and refers to someone who stands in opposition. True, Steve can’t quite picture Jay as a Lucifer the snake—the image is too slippery for the confident contrarian he’s become familiar with—but he can see him as Lucifer the insurgent, someone who takes action and shapes the narrative instead of letting it shape them.

Lucifer comes from _lux_ , the Latin word for light. He can see Jay easily—maybe a little too easily—with a cracking halo as he falls to Earth, spilling lightning into his surroundings, sending an electric shock through the unsuspecting ground below.

~

He invites Steve over to play Mario Kart— _it’s a classic_. He says those words like they constitute a promise, and Steve believes without question that he’ll keep it.

When Jay loses another round, Steve almost goes into hysterics laughing. “Isn’t the home team supposed to have the advantage?”

He responds with a long, muddled string of swears and flips Steve the middle finger.

“What?” he asks, barely audible even to himself between wheezing breaths. “‘s not my fault you _suck_.”

“You _wound_ me,” Jay cries, flopping down on the couch, head digging into Steve’s side.

Steve thinks he stops breathing.

“What? No witty retaliation from the mastermind?” Jay snorts and elbows him again. Heat spreads into Steve’s chest again, up his neck, and this time, it stays there, beating there like a second heart.

~

Slowly, Steve has come to realize that Jay isn’t Lucifer to him; he’s God. He would do anything to keep every one of Jay’s smiles and winks, to hold that warmth he always feels around him in his chest, to take every moment they’ve spent together and tuck them into his pocket. He would die. Jay makes Steve’s brain flood with adrenaline and endorphins, makes his thoughts rush by so quickly he can’t count and regulate them anymore, makes him feel warm and special and worthy of something for once. He would _die_. Maybe this is what love is—to adore someone so strongly it bleeds out of your soul and inhabits your skin, your physical state of being.


End file.
